Declaration & eEEDOP auto-fill

What the eEEDOP is and why it’s a special case

The eEEDOP — the electronic European Single Procurement Document — is a standardised form introduced by Directive 2014/24/EU and transposed into Bulgarian law through the Public Procurement Act (ZOP). It represents an upfront self-certification: the candidate or tenderer declares in a standardised form that it meets the selection requirements and that no grounds for exclusion apply — without having to submit all supporting documents at the bid stage.

The idea behind the eEEDOP is sound: it reduces the administrative burden, standardises the process across the EU, and allows economic operators to participate in procedures in different member states with a single instrument. In practice, however, especially in more complex procedures, the document runs to many pages, divided into parts and sections, each requiring specific information: data on the economic operator, grounds for exclusion (mandatory and optional), selection criteria, information about reliance on third-party capacity, and declarations for consortia.

In Bulgaria the eEEDOP is submitted in XML format through the Centralised Automated Information System for Electronic Public Procurement (CAISP EOP). The platform’s technical requirements add another layer of complexity: the format must be compatible with the specific version of the ESPD form, every field must be correctly validated, and the document must be signed with a qualified electronic signature by an authorised person. An error at any of those levels is an independent ground for exclusion.

Grounds for exclusion: Art. 54 and Art. 55 ZOP

At the heart of the eEEDOP and the standalone statutory declarations is the declaration of grounds for exclusion. The law distinguishes two types.

Mandatory grounds (Art. 54 ZOP): conviction for certain offences (corruption, tax fraud, human trafficking, money laundering, etc.), unpaid taxes and social-security contributions, a final conviction for participation in a criminal organisation, conflict of interest, and provision of false information to the contracting authority. Where any of these grounds applies, the participant must be excluded — the contracting authority has no discretion.

Optional grounds (Art. 55 ZOP): insolvency or liquidation, culpable non-performance of a previous public-procurement contract, serious violations of labour law or environmental protection, agreements that distort competition, and others. These grounds apply only if the contracting authority has explicitly included them in the notice or documentation.

Every declaration must cover exactly those grounds — no more, no less than what is set out in the documentation. Automated generation ensures that the declaration matches the exact list of grounds included by the specific contracting authority, and that the answers are consistent with what was declared in the eEEDOP.

Conflict of interest and related declarations

Beyond the declarations under Art. 54 and Art. 55 ZOP, procurement practice involves a range of additional declarations that a bidder must prepare. The conflict-of-interest declaration (under Art. 101(11) ZOP or analogous provisions) requires the candidate to confirm it is not connected to members of the evaluation committee or to officials of the contracting authority.

The confidentiality declaration restricts the candidate from disclosing information designated as confidential by the contracting authority. The declaration of consent to the terms for participating in a consortium (where the candidate participates through a grouping of economic operators) confirms that every member is aware of the terms and accepts their role. The declaration of absence of connection within the meaning of ZOP is another common template — it declares that the participant is not related to or in a dependency relationship with another participant in the procedure.

Each of these declarations has its own specific structure, requires different data, and must be signed by precisely defined persons — legal representatives, authorised individuals, or specific consortium members. If the company participates in several procedures simultaneously, managing these documents manually is not just labour-intensive, it’s systematically risky.

How auto-fill works

The foundation of the service is a verified company profile — a structured dataset about the economic operator containing legal form, registration data, representatives and their authorities, a history of executed contracts, available certificates and licences, key staff, and data on connected persons. The profile is built once and updated whenever changes occur.

For each new procedure, the system analyses the contracting authority’s documentation — the notice, the participation documentation, the templates — and extracts the exact list of required declarations and their corresponding fields. The mapping between the specific procedure’s requirements and the data in the profile is automatic: the system fills all standard fields, flags non-standard ones for manual review, and generates a draft version of every document.

The result is a package of declarations ready for final review and signature by an authorised person — in the correct format, with the correct data, and with no mandatory fields left blank. Final signing remains with the company’s legal representatives, but the content is generated and verified automatically.

• Automatic mapping of the specific documentation’s requirements against the company profile.
• Generation of the eEEDOP in XML format compatible with CAISP EOP.
• Completion of Art. 54 and Art. 55 ZOP declarations in the exact template required by the contracting authority.
• Flagging of non-standard fields and exceptions for manual review.
• Cross-consistency check between the eEEDOP and the standalone declarations.
• Batch preparation when participating in multiple procedures simultaneously.

Manual completion: the real cost

For a small or medium-sized bidder participating in 3–5 procedures a year, manual completion of declarations may seem manageable. The reality is different. Each procedure typically requires between 4 and 10 separate declarations and templates, each specific to the documentation at hand. If the company participates as part of a consortium, the count multiplies by the number of members. If it relies on third-party capacity, that third party must submit its own eEEDOP and its own declarations.

The figures below are illustrative samples, based on typical scenarios at the real scale of the market. They show the order of magnitude, not precise official data.

Time is not the only problem. More serious is the risk of inconsistency that arises from repeated manual entry. Registration number, date of incorporation, list of representatives — each of these fields recurs across multiple documents in the same package. A single inconsistency between two documents in one submission is an independent ground for doubt about authenticity, and can lead to a request for clarification or to exclusion.

The template on the table: typical declarations in a procedure

The table below is an illustrative list of the declarations and templates that typically appear in procurement documentation, showing which are auto-filled from the company profile and what type of data they draw on.

Data security and confidentiality

The company profile contains sensitive information — data about representatives, financial indicators, contract history. All processing takes place in a self-hosted, isolated environment with no transfer of data to third parties. Data is not used for model training. Access to the profile is restricted and auditable.

The generated documents are intended for review by authorised company personnel before signing. The system does not sign documents automatically — final signing with a qualified electronic signature remains entirely with the company’s legal representatives.

What you get

For every procedure you decide to enter, we deliver a complete package of completed declarations and templates — ready for final review and signature by an authorised person.

• eEEDOP in XML format compatible with CAISP EOP, with all applicable sections completed.
• Art. 54 and Art. 55 ZOP declarations in the exact template required by the specific contracting authority.
• All additional declarations from the documentation (conflict of interest, confidentiality, connection, etc.).
• Standard technical and financial proposal templates filled with profile data.
• A flag on every field requiring manual review or addition.
• An internal cross-consistency check across all documents in the package.